Gaming machines and gaming machine establishments like casinos are popular entertainment, attracting both infrequent and frequent visitors. Modern gaming machines are networked together, which allows accounting functions such as game tracking, player tracking, and bonusing. Visitors, or players, who identify themselves to the gaming network by becoming loyalty card holders accumulate bonus points as their play is tracked. Casinos benefit from knowing the identity of players and their frequency of play because player-specific marketing initiatives can increase player participation resulting in greater revenues to the casino. However, not all players choose to become loyalty card holders.
Traditional methods to entice players to make their identities known in exchange for participation in a player tracking or loyalty system have achieved some, although not overwhelming, success. Present methods include approaching players as they enter a casino and offering them various incentives for joining the player tracking system. However, casino staff shortages and time delays discourage some players from joining. Another widely-used method has been to place a casino host or hostess to the play area of the casino to visually observe players as they play to attempt to identify players with perceived value to the casino. For example, a host may attempt to estimate the number of plays a given player has made by monitoring monetary input or the length of time the player has played at an individual or group of machines. However, this type of estimation is unreliable and is based upon subjective criteria.
Other obstacles to full participation in player tracking systems include infrequent visitors, privacy issues, and player superstition. An infrequent visitor to a particular casino might view the time spent in registering with the player tracking system as wasted time. Others might feel that providing identification for registration would lead to a loss of privacy if marketing efforts were directed to a shared address or if the accumulated information were to become known by others. Additionally, some players might be suspicious of a casino's efforts to track their play and suppose that such tracking could affect the outcome of subsequent games.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other deficiencies in casino gaming systems.